Health and university reform

Is Mr Cameron now quashing his own reforms?

TWO of the ministers responsible for public-sector reform plans have had an absolutely dreadful week in the Commons. Andrew Lansley bore the look and sad defiance of a man who knows that he has lost prime ministerial support on a major bill. Given that the pause button has been pressed on his NHS reforms and the noises from Number 10 suggest a major retreat on GP commissioning, it's an act of cruelty to haul poor Mr Lansley before the House, only to defend proposals which might well not happen and which he probably won't be in charge of if they do.

More worrying is a shift in the mood in the coalition about radical reform of any sort. Was this not supposed to be an alliance based on the readiness of senior Liberal Democrats and Tories to think the unthinkable in reforming the state? You wouldn't know it from the present debate, which is overwhelmingly about what should not be allowed, rather than what should go ahead or be fully considered in their context.

The next sacrificial lamb on the chopping block was David Willetts, who proposed supply-side reforms to university admissions by lifting the cap on numbers. His intention was to admit more high-scoring students, currently losing out in the race for places in top universities. Because this would increase the cost to the taxpayer, Mr Willetts also wanted to explore other avenues of funding, including employers and charities paying for places and the thorny question of whether some privately funded places should be available to British nationals, as they are for foreign students.

All hell broke loose. Mr Cameron slapped down another reforming minister (he is beginning to make a habit of it) and Mr Willetts retreated before he got properly started. So another big reform topic has been iced for the foreseeable future. Really, you do not need to be a state-slaying fanatic of the Tory right to see there is a problem here. Who needs the Liberal Democrats to block discussions on radical reform when the prime minister is so ably doing that himself?

Readers' comments

I suppose this is one of more esoteric impact of the AV vote; both these reforms AT THIS MOMENT IN TIME have a potential to oust Nick Clegg from LDP leadership, so all reforms would likely to be on ice until after the LDP leadership issue is resolved one way or the other in June....

My highest hope for this blog is that it would dial in on the actually machinery of reform and the reform of existing institutions. The details, what would be likely to change and what would be likely not to. I truly don't think it is fair for a blog reader to complain about the content of a blogger's writing and I hope this comment doesn't come off that way, I'm enjoying it so far. But the politics of major reform initiatives I trust Bagehot and the other blogs to cover. I guess I just want to say that there be not less than one reader who will gratefully eat up ground-level descriptions and analyses of actual proposals.

I also grant that based on what I've read here, the actual reform has been tepid and all the drama in Whitehall so far.

In this blog, our public policy editor reports on how governments in Britain and beyond are rethinking and reforming the state's role in public services, the arts and life in general. The blog takes its name from Thomas Hobbes's book of 1651, which remains one of the most influential examinations of the relationship between government and society.